


Arrow: A Canary's Return

by ArlyssTolero



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:33:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24442915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArlyssTolero/pseuds/ArlyssTolero
Summary: When Sara Lance goes to pay her respects to her sister while trying to make the decision as to whether or not to rejoin Rip Hunter's crew as he takes over for the Council of Time Masters in safeguarding history, it isn't her father who joins her. Instead, she comes across Oliver Queen, and is forcibly reminded of memories buried after her time in the League during her two-year exile.
Relationships: Sara Lance/Oliver Queen
Comments: 26
Kudos: 32





	Arrow: A Canary's Return

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don’t own Arrow or Legends of Tomorrow.
> 
> A/N: I needed something to get myself back into the Oliver/Sara mindset after focusing almost exclusively on my Oliver/Laurel story, “Arrow: Rebirth”. This helped me remember the connection Sara and Oliver share.

Sara Lance entered the graveyard at a slow pace, taking her time, because she knew that once she reached her sister’s grave, the barely-healed wound of discovering her sister had been murdered by Damien Darhk and Rip had known about it would be ripped wide open again, leaving her twisted up inside as to whether or not to accept Rip’s offer to she and the rest of the Legends to join him in keeping the timeline intact now that the Council of Time Masters had been destroyed. Sara slowed her approach as she spotted someone else already at her sister’s grave, and the sight of Oliver Queen woke memories she had shoved down during her two years with the League when she had been trapped in the past.

_“Whoever you are, get out!” the voice, gravelly but still recognizable for one who had grown up with it’s owner, said from the shadows. Sara turned, shining her light into the darkness as a figure moved in the shadows. Connor and Rip readied their weapons, Sara too shocked at hearing a voice she hadn’t expected to hear after finding the Bunker in disrepair and Connor’s implication that the man now speaking to them was dead. “I said get out!” A one-armed Oliver Queen emerged from the shadows, holding a machine gun in one hand. “Whoever you are, get out…”_

_“Oliver?” Sara asked in disbelief, staring at her old friend. Connor had yet to lower his bow._

_Oliver lowered his weapon, staring at them for a moment before saying, “Hello, Sara. Long time, no see.”_

_“Is that-?” Rip began._

_“Oliver Queen,” Connor confirmed, the young archer still not lowering his bow._

_“Everyone thinks that you’re dead,” Sara said softly._

_“They’re not wrong,” Oliver replied. He eyed Connor. “Put the arrow down, John. You’re embarrassing yourself.”_

_“John?” Rip queried._

_“John Diggle, Jr.,” Oliver confirmed._

_The newly revealed John Diggle Jr. pulled his hood down and removed his mask as he stepped forward defiantly. “My dad is dead,” he said, “because I couldn’t save him. I don’t deserve his name. I’m Connor Hawke.”_

_“So, you won’t take his name,” Oliver grumbled, “but it’s all right to parade around in someone else’s outfit?”_

_“Well, someone has to,” Connor replied, “because last time that I checked, you were dead. Everyone thought you were dead. I’ve been trying to hold this city by myself because I thought you were gone.” Connor shook his head in disbelief that Oliver was standing in front of him and turned away, moving off to the side._

_Sara stepped forward, her blue eyes concerned as she took in Oliver’s appearance, particularly his missing arm. “What happened to you? To Laurel, to my dad… Felicity-”_

_“They’re gone,” Oliver replied, his tone abrupt. “All of them.”_

_“What do you mean?” Sara asked. “Ollie-”_

_“Gone,” Oliver repeated. “What do you want me to say, Sara? Thirty years ago, you and Ray hopped on a spaceship, and you never came back.”_

_“We will,” Sara said firmly, needing to believe it as much as she wanted Oliver to believe her._

_“I don’t want to say that things would have ended differently if you and Ray had been here, but-”_

_“But if we were, it could’ve made the difference,” Sara finished._

Sara took another step forward, her blue eyes fixed on the hunched form of Oliver Queen, memories still flooding back.

_“Oliver,” Sara called as she entered the Bunker, carrying a very special briefcase. “Oliver!” She heard footsteps off to the side and turned._

_“I thought I told you to go,” Oliver said as he stepped onto the defunct computer platform where Felicity had likely spent countless hours._

_“Grant Wilson has Connor,” Sara said as she stepped up onto the platform as well, moving to meet Oliver in the center. “They’re gonna kill him.”_

_“He knew what he was signing up for and you know there’s nothing I can do to help him,” Oliver replied._

_“That’s not the Oliver Queen that I know,” Sara replied, continuing to move forward._

_“Maybe I’m not that person anymore,” Oliver replied. “Look at me, Sara. I am literally half the man I used to be.”_

_“Then that’s the half this city needs,” Sara said calmly yet confidently. “He’s got too many men, Ollie. I can’t do this by myself.”_

_“What about your friends?” Oliver asked._

_“I’m on my own, unless I’m not,” Sara said, meeting Oliver’s gaze. She reached into the case she had brought with her, drawing out the bow she had had Gideon create for her._

_“Come on, Sara,” Oliver said softly._

_“I never got the chance to ask Connor why he wears the hood, but I know why,” Sara said. She extended the bow and held it out towards Oliver. “It’s because this city will always need a Green Arrow.” Oliver looked at the bow, and then met her gaze._

Sara continued to move forward, tears dripping from her eyes as she watched the only man she had trusted enough to let her guard down around at the grave of a woman they had both loved, a woman who had died defending Star City from Damien Darhk and his machinations.

_“Sir,” a Deathstroke soldier said as he approached, holding Sara prisoner, her arms pinned to her back. “We saw her trying to sneak passed the perimeter,” the soldier reported as Sara lowered her head, eyelids drooping in a simile of defeat, knowing she had to play her part._

_“Sloppy,” Grant Wilson said as he moved away from Connor to stare down at Sara. “The League of Assassins would be embarrassed. What was your strategy here? You really think you could just turn up tonight, kill me?” The men around them jeered with scornful laughter as Grant grinned at them._

_“No,” Sara said, meeting his gaze with her suddenly steely blue eyes. “It was just my job to distract you.” She turned and looked to the left, causing others to turn as well, and more than one man gave shocked noises while Grant stared in disbelief at the silhouetted form of Oliver Queen, the original Green Arrow, as he stood ready to once more defend his city from the criminal vermin that had infested it._

Sara shook her head to dismiss the memory of the battle that followed as she closed the remaining distance between she and Oliver. She could now hear what he was saying. “I know you wouldn’t approve of what I did. I mean, I know that it’s not what you would have wanted, me killing Darhk, but you were always better than me, Laurel. That is what I loved most about you.”

“It’s what we both loved about her,” Sara said softly, crouching beside Oliver, who looked at her in surprise. Sara laid a single white rose down in front of the grave before brushing her fingers across the carving of her sister’s name and the bold declaration that Laurel Lance had been the Black Canary. “I wish I had never given her my jacket,” Sara continued. “She wasn’t meant for this life; maybe in another life, another time, she would have been the quintessential hero, defending the weak and abused, and shone like a beacon of hope for all to see. But the world we live in is cruel, and unjust, and sometimes the just have to be as cruel as those they oppose in order to triumph over evil.” Sara brought her hands together, but Oliver pulled one free and entwined his hand with hers. “I don’t know if I can do this without her, Ollie.”

“I’m not sure that I can, either,” Oliver admitted as the two stood, and he pulled his hand away only to circle his arm around her (the arm, she thought, that he would lose in that dark future), pulling her close. “But she would want us to go on, even if we were going to do things she disapproved of. She was the epitome of being a hero. Working within the confines of the law and working alongside law enforcement to get justice. And in any other city, she would have been the hero that they needed and deserved. But Star City isn’t like other cities. Star City doesn’t need beacons of hope. It needs pragmatists, people willing to do what is necessary to end the threat, even if it means breaking the law. It’s why I always said I wasn’t a hero. I tried to be one this year, and this is the result. Never again, Sara. Never again will I put my ego, my need for validation, over what this city needs.”

“Neither will I,” Sara said. Oliver turned to look at her. “The mission’s over. We won. Rip offered us a chance to continue on with him, keep the timeline intact. We all learned early on he was lying to us. We weren’t legends in the future. We were nobodies, people time didn’t give a damn about. We stuck around to change our own fates. But coming here, seeing you… it reminded me of something that happened two years ago, for me.”

“Two years?” Oliver echoed. “Your mission took two years? Does that mean you’re my age now?”

“That’s right, Ollie,” Sara said, lips twitching. “I could be Laurel’s twin, now.” The two chuckled sadly, knowing Laurel would find the fact her little sister was now the same age as her completely weird and freak out about it if she were alive. “The important thing is that what I remembered helped me make my decision.” She looked down at Laurel’s grave. “My sister gave her life for the people of Star City. The only way to honor her memory is to take up that fight.”

“Does that mean you’ll be taking her mantle?” Oliver asked.

“You think I should?” Sara asked in return.

“Laurel asked me, before she died, to make sure that she wasn’t the last Canary,” Oliver said softly. “I think, that if anyone had to take her mantle, that she would want it to be you, to keep it in the family.”

“It’ll be weird, wearing a mask again,” Sara said softly. “But I can do it.”

Oliver and Sara would go on to protect their city as Green Arrow and Black Canary, eventually reigniting their love for one another and marrying in a double ceremony with Barry Allen and Caitlin Snow. Their brand of heroism was one of pragmatism, of doing whatever was necessary to protect the people of Star City.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I hope everyone enjoyed this little one-shot. I may expand it into a full story, though if I do that story will be posted separately.
> 
> As far as I’m concerned, Sara deciding at the end of Season 1 of “Legends of Tomorrow” was Marc Guggenheim ensuring no one could threaten his Olicity wet dream, and Sara was most definitely a threat because Caity Lotz has great chemistry with Stephen Amell.


End file.
